npower annual discount

GasPants

I am about to leave npower but I want to get my annual discount before I do.

I started being an npower customer on 11 May 2011. They took the first direct debit on 1 July 2011.

Go Fix 5 is coming to an end on 31 May and I want to leave but not without the £100 discount.Can anyone advise when I should recieve this.

bengal-stripe

I believe, you are entitled to the discount once the 12th Direct Debit has gone through (in your case after June 1st), presuming there weren't any hiccups (like bounced, rejected Direct Debits) throughout the year.

SnowMan

Assuming that 11th May is the date the supply actually switched over (as opposed to the date you applied to switch) you are entitled to the direct debit discount on 11th May 2012. See this npower page.

When will I receive my monthly Direct Debit discount?


If you're a new customer who has paid by monthly Direct Debit since you joined npower, your discount will be paid onto your npower energy account 12 months after we started supplying your property. It will continue to be paid every year on the anniversary of your joining npower, as long as you continue to pay by monthly Direct Debit.

If you're an existing customer who has changed to monthly Direct Debit from another payment method, your discount will be paid 12 months after you changed payment method. It will continue to be paid every year on the anniversary of your changing to monthly Direct Debit and will appear on the first energy account after your anniversary date, as long as you continue to pay by monthly Direct Debit

Note this npower page amongst others causes confusion as it states

Once you have paid by Direct Debit continuously for 12 months you will receive a Direct Debit discount.

The discount will be shown on the first statement you receive after your Direct Debit anniversary.

However when I rang them up with an almost identical question they confirmed the entitlement was 12 months after they began supplying the property.


So you are free to switch when your tarriff comes to an end on 31st May.

Because it usually takes about 6 weeks to switch you should be safe to arrange a switch to another provider now, as the switch should take place after 31st May when your tarriff presumably ends and after 11th May when your get entitlement to the discount

george1939

bengal-stripe wrote: »

I believe, you are entitled to the discount once the 12th Direct Debit has gone through (in your case after June 1st), presuming there weren't any hiccups (like bounced, rejected Direct Debits) throughout the year.

I agree once the 12th full direct debit for gas and electric is taken out you will get your £100 direct into your bank account after the 1st of June

jalexa

GasPants wrote: »

Go Fix 5 is coming to an end on 31 May and I want to leave but not without the £100 discount.Can anyone advise when I should recieve this.

I'm with Snowman's interpretation for the following reason. In order that the discount counts in a Consumer Focus accredited comparison it must be credited by the last day of a 12 month comparison period. Note that credited really means earned. It is a discount for being continuously on a direct debit tariff, not specifically having made 12 payments, which anyway are under the control of nPower, not the customer.

So IMO you will "earn" the discount on the supply anniversary, that is 11 May 2012.

Terrylw1

Just remember that whilst a switch takes 4-6 weeks as quoted by Ofgem, that's the actual time to do it. The only date that matters is the registration date the new supplier chooses. This date will be after your cooling off period and it has to be future dated, but that can be +1 day after the cooling off period ends and someone actions the request to switch. That date won't and can't be 6 weeks otherwise 4-6 weeks would be much longer since the majority of the industry work behind the scenes takes place close to the registration date.

Just bare that in mind incase they register you before you ever switch. In your case, you are safe now since your cooling off period will take you over your anniversary date.

SnowMan

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Just remember that whilst a switch takes 4-6 weeks as quoted by Ofgem, that's the actual time to do it. The only date that matters is the registration date the new supplier chooses. This date will be after your cooling off period and it has to be future dated, but that can be +1 day after the cooling off period ends and someone actions the request to switch. That date won't and can't be 6 weeks otherwise 4-6 weeks would be much longer since the majority of the industry work behind the scenes takes place close to the registration date.

Just bare that in mind incase they register you before you ever switch. In your case, you are safe now since your cooling off period will take you over your anniversary date.

I'm not sure I understand the relevance of the registration date and have never heard that term. My understanding when you switch to a different supplier is:

1. The switch date won't be until after the 7 day cooling off period

2. Typically the switch might take 4-6 weeks. You usually get a letter from the new supplier during the process saying we will supply your property from x (where x is that typical 4-6 weeks after you initiate the switch, that's what I'm calling the switch date in this post)

3. Theoretically at least the switch date could be earlier (or later) than 4-6 weeks, so any time after 7 days although in practice it is rarely earlier than 4 weeks.

4. The old supplier bills you up to the switch date and the new supplier from the switch date.

So as long as the actual switch date is more than 12 months after the original supply date (so subject to the risk in 3.) then npower will have been supplying the customer for more than 12 months and so in accordance with their documented information the customer will qualify for the direct debit discount.

So the registration date is irrelevant (unless you mean by registration date what I am calling switch date)?


I would be very grateful if you could clarify as I will be in the almost identical position in January 2013 and I was relying on the above being correct.

hermante

george1939 wrote: »

I agree once the 12th full direct debit for gas and electric is taken out you will get your £100 direct into your bank account after the 1st of June

Is that correct? I thought that they worked out the direct debit amount to include the discount, so if your annual consumption estimate is accurate your account should be near to 0 after 12 months? Certainly that is what happened on their website when I was filling in the form.

I intend to go with npower for one year. I started the process on 11 Apr, and have received letters dated 16 Apr and 27 Apr. Does my old supplier already know that I want to switch?

I guess my start date will be around 11 May (exactly one year after the OP ), so would I be safe to switch away around the end of April 2013?

george1939

hermante wrote: »

Is that correct? I thought that they worked out the direct debit amount to include the discount, so if your annual consumption estimate is accurate your account should be near to 0 after 12 months? Certainly that is what happened on their website when I was filling in the form.

I intend to go with npower for one year. I started the process on 11 Apr, and have received letters dated 16 Apr and 27 Apr. Does my old supplier already know that I want to switch?

I guess my start date will be around 11 May (exactly one year after the OP ), so would I be safe to switch away around the end of April 2013?

I applied in may last they switched me over in june first electric and days later gas but on the first of july they only took the direct debit for electricity only? I rang them up and said what about the gas debit They said I can pay for that now over the phone there and then[ date was 10th of july] all the other months they have taken out both amounts on the 1st of each month which they should have done in the first place but they said because gas debit payment was 10th of june I will only after 10th June this year receive the £100 [This information I was told last July]

Terrylw1

hermante wrote: »

Is that correct? I thought that they worked out the direct debit amount to include the discount, so if your annual consumption estimate is accurate your account should be near to 0 after 12 months? Certainly that is what happened on their website when I was filling in the form.

I intend to go with npower for one year. I started the process on 11 Apr, and have received letters dated 16 Apr and 27 Apr. Does my old supplier already know that I want to switch?

I guess my start date will be around 11 May (exactly one year after the OP ), so would I be safe to switch away around the end of April 2013?

When your cooling off period expires, the new supplier sends a data flow yo the local distributor including a future dated registration date. Your old supplier gets a different data flow from the local distributor to advise a change of supply has been initiated so thy can choose o object t if applicable.

I don't think the DD for the first year includes the discount as its applied after 12 months effectively making it year 2.

Terrylw1

SnowMan wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the relevance of the registration date and have never heard that term. My understanding when you switch to a different supplier is:

1. The switch date won't be until after the 7 day cooling off period

2. Typically the switch might take 4-6 weeks. You usually get a letter from the new supplier during the process saying we will supply your property from x (where x is that typical 4-6 weeks after you initiate the switch, that's what I'm calling the switch date in this post)

3. Theoretically at least the switch date could be earlier (or later) than 4-6 weeks, so any time after 7 days although in practice it is rarely earlier than 4 weeks.

4. The old supplier bills you up to the switch date and the new supplier from the switch date.

So as long as the actual switch date is more than 12 months after the original supply date (so subject to the risk in 3.) then npower will have been supplying the customer for more than 12 months and so in accordance with their documented information the customer will qualify for the direct debit discount.

So the registration date is irrelevant (unless you mean by registration date what I am calling switch date)?


I would be very grateful if you could clarify as I will be in the almost identical position in January 2013 and I was relying on the above being correct.

The correct industry term is Effective From Settlement Date (REGI), which is often referred to as the registration date, supplier start date or from a customers point if view, switch date.

The 4-6 weeks though that Ofgem have been quoting for many years has always been to give customers an idea of the average physical time for the process to fully complete.

To fully complete, the new supplier has to appoint & receive acceptance or resolve rejections from their Data Collector & Meter Operator, they have to update the Distributor with this info and also appoint the Data Aggregator at the same time, once this has all been done the previous agents are contacted by the new suppliers agents to obtain details of metering & consumption history and appoint a Data Retriever to read the meter with the meter details to allow them to assign readings to the meter, then the final part of the process is he switch reading which may be Deemed by the new Data Collector and passed to the new supplier plus old Data Collector to get it to the old supplier. The last part occurs only where the customer hasn't submitted a reading.

That's the main part of the industry process but there are a few other minor communications.

On top this, your old supplier has the right to object which is sent to the distributor and they send it on to the new supplier. The old supplier can only do this within, I think, 5 days. This object can be removed, I think, within another 5 days. I would have to check the industry SLA's, its been a while!

This where the 4-6 weeks comes in as these are all part of response process between suppliers, distributors and agents.

The very first part of all of the above it the registration date. This isn't sent until your cooling off period expires and must be future dated. The distributors MPAS software works in real time so you can send the registration request at today+1 but that would tight so it may be a few days.

If the date for switch was 4 weeks ahead, all of the above would take longer. The new supplier though should at east give the other supplier time to object so it would to be at least the 5 days plus a few days to allow transfer time to the distributor.

The Master Registration Agreement (MRA) states that it cannot submit a date over 28 days in the future or it will be rejected, and the new supplier make reasonable endeavours to allow time for things to take place prior to them getting a confirmation the switch has been accepted into the distributors database where no objection by the old supplier has been raised and upheld.

All of the above is via data flows over the Data Transfer Network (DTN).

So, its entirely compliant to go for today+X days to allow for a day for each data flow to be sent and 5 days for the old supplier to object. Its all working days though.

This is why I say be careful because its really up to the new supplier and they can't see your contract end date. So, as long as your cooling off period takes you close, you don't need to worry about getting the new supplier to push it at enough into the future.

Here's the link to the MRA. You want clause 15.

http://www.mrasco.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=23

This only covers the t&c's, the actual basic process mentioned above is covered in detail in E22 diagrams elsewhere.